


This Was Our Home

by obscureenthusiast



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Can't Control Their Powers, Gen, Hydra Facility Fic, I guess there's angst?, Pre-Age of Ultron, Pre-Powers, Sibling Love, These kids are basically made of angst, Wanda's POV, and i didn't want it to be maxicest, because i needed more fics with them, family love, just good wholesome sibling relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-07-22
Packaged: 2018-04-10 15:33:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4397366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obscureenthusiast/pseuds/obscureenthusiast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wanda has had very few places she could call "home" in her life, but Pietro has always been there for her. This is the story of how she lost her first four homes, and how she gained her powers in the process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Was Our Home

Their first home was lost to poverty.

Wanda and Pietro were just six years old. Their family was evicted.

"It'll be alright," Pietro told her. 

She was crying, clinging to their father's hand as if was the only thing left. It certainly felt like it at the time.

They moved to a new neighborhood, across town, where the rent was cheaper and their father could work for the factory while their mother worked cleaning floors over at the government building. They changed schools and Wanda cried -this time quietly -the night before their first day. She knew that Pietro could hear her, they shared a room, though he didn’t say anything the next day as they got dressed for school. In the end, it wasn’t as bad as Wanda had feared. Pietro did hold her hand for most of the day, though. 

The kids were nice enough in their neighborhood. None of them had much more than Wanda and Pietro, so they would all play in the street, using whatever they could find as toys. And pretty soon Wanda stopped crying for their first home. Pietro, though he never said anything, only seemed to embrace their new home once Wanda stopped crying herself to sleep.

Their second home was lost to the bombs. 

In the rubble Pietro had held her close while she sobbed and screamed with every shift in the dirt and rocks and debris of their shattered home.

He had yelled, too. Calling for help until his voice was ragged. When he couldn't scream any more he had resorted to whispering calming words into Wanda’s ear. The claustrophobic space they lay trapped in seemed all at once too quiet and too loud. Their breaths echoed hollowly against the rocks even when neither of them had any energy left to speak. Those were the moments when Wanda would stare at the bomb, just a couple feet away, counting down the moments that she felt for sure were their last.

_Stark_.

And yet they survived. 

After the rescue operations and the medical treatments for Wanda's broken arm and Pietro's sprained ankle, they were alone. They had no family left. Their parents’ bodies were uncovered during the rescue operations and eventually laid to rest in a graveyard with the rest of those killed in the attack. 

They had no friends. Not really. The families in their neighborhood were either dead or had lost everything just like the twins. So they moved to the center of town. Among the tent cities and homeless.

Once they were living on the street a lot of things changed.

"It'll be alright, Wanda." Pietro said, dropping the bag of stolen food on the ground as he leaned breathlessly against the dirty bricks of the alleyway. 

She looked away from the food, ashamed of her growling, empty stomach, "Our parents taught us better,” she muttered.

He sat down heavily beside her, still breathing hard. He glanced at her, then reached into the bag and pulled out an apple. "Our parents aren't here." He passed her the fruit and she took it, cradling it with both hands.

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. "We'll share what we don't eat with the other homeless. It'll be good for everyone."

Wanda frowned, but said nothing, as she bit into the apple, savoring the taste despite her objections to its origins.

When the protests started, they joined in, rallying with others who had lost everything. Wanda and Pietro told their story to others. Not that it was uncommon, when many had lost their homes in the bombings.

When they realized their tragedy was the norm, they decided they needed more than just protests, rallies, and expecting something to just change.

"Pietro, please..."

"I'm done with sitting around!"

She shushed him, lowering her own voice as if it would compel him to do the same. "We can’t just go marching off to battle." When he ignored her statement, she jumped out of her seat and caught his shoulder as he tried to walk away, "Pietro!" She hissed.

Her grip tightened and he looked down at his sister, his gaze no less fiery but his tone softer, "You want justice as much as I do, Wanda." Pietro’s jaw tightened and he reached over to wrap his hand around Wanda's. "And what we're doing isn't working. He destroyed our town. Don't you see how wrong that is?! People are losing their families so quickly it's like everyone is numb to it and it's not fair!"

Wanda looked down at the floor. They were currently in one of the city's many soup kitchens. She could hear others milling around her. People who had lost their homes. People who had been injured and couldn't work any more. People who had suffered just as much, if not more, than she and Pietro. And he was right. It wasn’t fair.

She didn’t want to go charging off blindly, though. She didn’t want them to end up in more danger. It was bad enough when the police would break up the protests -people ended up in the hospital or in jail, more often than not. It was only by sheer luck that she and Pietro hadn’t yet.

He leaned in close, resting his forehead against hers.

"It's time to fight back."

She squeezed her eyes shut and whispered, "I don't want to lose you."

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a tight hug, resting his chin on her head, "It'll be alright, Wanda."

There were dark corners of the city, Wanda wished Pietro would avoid them, they heard about a group looking for young volunteers. The group supposedly promised to strike a blow against the ones who had destroyed Sokovia. They promised justice.

Their third home was left behind for the promise of something better.

They signed up. Yes, they were told about the nature of the experiments, but they agreed all the same. 

They were placed in separate rooms, and for the first time in their lives, Wanda and Pietro were apart. The Hydra facility was extensive, underground so they couldn’t even see the sun from day to day, . Wanda didn’t know how far down it went, but she tried her hardest not to think about what would happen if everything collapsed in on itself. Rock and dirt and rubble everywhere, except that now Pietro was gone. There was no one here to hold her tight and tell her it was ok.

Even though she tried her hardest, she still woke, cold sweat sticking to the sheets, screaming for her brother or her parents, gasping for air.

It was hard to keep track of how many days she spent there, alone. 

Every day Dr. List would come in, a Hydra agent on either side of him, and ask her to follow him to the lab. She usually got her serum at that point, accompanied by an involuntary wince as the needle stuck her skin. By now Wanda's arms and neck were covered in bruises where she had been injected. The nameless serums rushed through her blood like fire and she couldn’t tell sometimes whether it was getting better or worse; maybe she was just getting better at fighting through the pain. 

After the treatments, Dr. List would take her to the exam room and ask her how she was feeling. He would stand across from her as she sat at the plain gray table, asking questions about her mental and physical health, about any strange or unexplained symptoms. He would note whatever she told him. He would set down a wooden block on the table and ask her to concentrate on it. When nothing happened, he would write his notes and then smile at her, saying, “That will be all today. Thank you, Wanda.”

But today, Wanda, sitting in the exam room, had other plans. 

“So, tell me,” Dr. List said with a smile, “how have you been doing, Wanda?”

“Where is Pietro?” she spit the words out quickly, lest she stop herself halfway. 

Dr. List looked up from his tablet sharply. “Your brother?”

She nodded, her back stiff in her seat as she tried her best to look firm but calm.

List smiled, “Pietro is fine, Wanda, he’s here in the facility, just like you. He’s doing well, very well.”

Something in his tone worried Wanda, but she swallowed to wet her dry mouth and said, still maintaining her calm, “Can I see him?”

List’s smile faded and he lowered his tablet, “I’m afraid that’s not possible right now,” he gave an apologetic half-smile, “you know that these experiments are very… delicate in their nature. The reason we separated the two of you from the beginning is because we didn’t want any accidents to happen. If the experiments succeed, then the two of you will have very little control and you could easily hurt yourselves or each other.”

Wanda shook her head, “Pietro would never hurt me. I want to see him.”

“Accidents happen. Perhaps he would never hurt you intentionally, but things are different now.” List, again, smiled in that small, apologetic way, and added, “I promise you, Wanda, in time you’ll see your brother. But for now we can’t endanger you two. You’re far too important.” 

She looked down, her jaw tight with held back words and tears. Words she wanted to spit at him. Tears that stung at her eyes because all she really wanted was to know that Pietro was alright. He was all she had and she hadn’t seen him for -if her count was correct -nearly a month.

And there was still that tone in List’s voice that made her worry. 

Dr. List leaned forward, “Wanda, I’m sorry it has to be this way. But you understand, don’t you?”

She didn’t respond. The tears were getting dangerously close to the surface now, along with all of the anger and frustration that seemed held back by only her clenched jaw. As if her teeth had become a dam, stopping a flood of words.

If List said anything, she didn’t quite hear him. She was too busy staring at the edge of the table, only just keeping her emotions in check. All she knew was that the wooden block was set down in front of her. 

That stupid wooden block. That stupid, useless block.

She looked at it, glaring as if it represented everything that was keeping her from her brother. 

She didn’t want to stare at blocks. She wanted to know that Pietro was safe. She _needed_ to know that Pietro was safe. Dr. List was hiding something, she knew he was. If Pietro was in danger she deserved to know.

With a sudden motion, her hands balled into fists and pounded on the table, screaming with wordless frustration. At the same time, heat bubbled within her, wrapping her hands in red energy and setting her mind on fire for a split second. The block exploded into shards. All at once the heat that had split through her mind was gone and Wanda collapsed back into her chair, letting out a sharp cry of pain.

It was as if all the strength had been sapped from her limbs in that one second. She didn’t even have the energy to maintain all the anger she had been directing at the cube.

“What the hell was that?!” she gasped, looking wide-eyed from the wooden shards to Dr. List.

He was muttering to himself in German, staring at the spot the cube used to be and making notes on his tablet.

Finally, he looked at Wanda, asking excitedly, "Do you think you could do that again?" 

She closed her eyes against the intense headache that suddenly felt like it was tearing her skull apart. "I...I don't..." She lifted her hands to her temples, rubbing in an attempt to soothe the pain, "maybe..." 

Frankly, she wasn't sure if she could even stand up, her legs felt like stone and her mind was in a haze from the headache and a sort of background noise she couldn’t shake. 

Dr. List called two Hydra agents over to escort her out, all the while congratulating Wanda on her progress. He didn’t realize that Wanda could hardly hear him over the incessant noise in her head.

Her powers developed fairly quickly. The noise faded into the background, but at random times it would become unbearable. It was more than just noise, she came to find. It was a collection of noises and feelings and images that she could never sort out. Every now and then it was accompanied by phantom pain which shot through her shoulders or knees.

In a couple weeks she could easily pick up and move the blocks without destroying them, and without exhausting herself. With each passing day she felt like she could move things easier and further. Pietro was still on her mind, but she didn’t bring him up to Dr. List, assuming that he would only tell her the same thing again. She pushed herself toward better control. Toward the day that Dr. List would think she could keep herself in check. The day he would let her see Pietro again. 

One night she was staring at the darkened ceiling, trying to sleep despite laying there for hours without relief. The buzzing in her head was louder than usual. More insistent. 

She sat up. Maybe if she moved around a bit she could shake it away. Her feet hit the chilled tiles as she stood. Walking from one side of her room to the other was a short distance, so she turned and walked the other way. The buzzing seemed to only get louder, so she did it again. One of her hands reached up to massage her forehead as she turned on her heel to walk the other way. Back and forth. Back and forth. She paced like that for about ten minutes before her frustration broke.

Stopping so that she was facing the blank gray wall, only just discernible in the low glow of the security light in the corner of the room, she screamed and pounded a fist against it. Red energy flashed out around her hand, but did no damage to the wall.

Breathing hard, she leaned her head against the cool metal. She just wanted to _sleep_. Was that too much to ask? But now the noise in her head was going wild and she pounded against the wall again, growling her frustration to the empty room. Her eyes slid closed and she focused on the noise. 

Without really meaning to, her focus drifted into the noise. Every other time she had tried it, she had been unable to see or hear or feel anything clearly. But this time…

She could see her room. No, no it wasn’t hers, it was laid out differently. A moment later she felt fire split through her veins and she was slamming into the wall on the far side of the room. Pain rocketed through her shoulder and she flinched. 

With a gasp she was back in her own room. She blinked a couple of times, looking around as she regained her sense of self. 

Pietro. 

She didn’t know how she knew, but…

Pain tightened the muscles in her knees, the phantom pain that had started with the noise in her head. But this time she knew that it wasn’t phantom. It just wasn’t _her_ pain. 

Her hand traced along the wall and she shifted her focus, more slowly this time, back into the buzzing images.

It was the same room. Again, there was that fiery pain and she could feel herself charge forward at a speed far too fast to be natural. She felt her knee crash into a chair, but instead of falling normally it appeared to move in slow motion. The wall stopped all forward movement once more and she heard the chair hit the ground as soon as she, or Pietro, she supposed, stopped moving. There were emotions churning through his head that she caught glimpses of. He was just as tired as she was, only for him, it was because he physically couldn’t stop moving. His legs were sore from fatigue and bruised, she could feel it, but he simply _couldn’t_ stop. 

When the body stopped for a moment to rest against the wall, Wanda knew suddenly where her mind was. 

She could… _sense_ Pietro’s body and he was on the other side of the wall that she was standing in front of. 

Her eyes shot open, leaving behind her brother’s mind to inhabit her own once more.

“Pietro.” she whispered. All this time and he had only been in the next room over.

She was going to see him. Tonight. 

Turning away from the wall, she stepped away, looking at the door with determination. She lifted her hands, allowing the echoes of pain she could feel from Pietro to fuel her anger. The door was currently keeping her from helping her brother and she would not allow it to stop her.

Energy flickered around her hands, the fire of it lighting up the dim room with dark red. It traced around the lock of the door, she could feel it flashing along the internal mechanism. It took all of her concentration not to simply blast the door off its hinges -for one thing she didn't think she'd have enough strength left to walk after that, for another she didn't think Hydra would much appreciate her destroying anything bigger than a wooden block.

With a satisfying click, the door unlocked and the residual magic forced it open. She lowered her hands, waiting a moment to get accustomed to the drain in her energy, then rushed forward, stepping through her door hesitantly. She paused a moment to look each way down the hallway; there was no sign of any agents or scientists, but she was sure that whoever was watching the cameras at this time of night would soon be sending guards. They'd get here in a few minutes, so she had to make the most of it.

Wanda grabbed the doorframe and slid into the hallway, quickly walking the distance between her door and the next one over. Another jolt of pain passed through her hands, shuddering up to her elbows, and she bit back a sharp cry of pain. 

Pietro's door was even less work than her own; this time she knew what she was doing. She didn’t bother waiting for it to swing open on its own, she pushed into the room as quickly as she could.

“Pietro!” she said.

A flash of silver streaked across the room, kicking the toppled chair as he ran. He slammed into the wall and Wanda winced, both empathetically and empathically.

“Wanda?” he was breathing hard, leaning against the wall. 

Now that she could see him clearly, she realized just how bad it was. His arms were covered in bruises and scrapes, his long, unkempt hair fell into his eyes as he looked her up and down.

She stared at him wordlessly. Of course, it occurred to her now that she had no plan of how to help him. In her room she had single-mindedly _needed_ to get here and now she _was_ and…

He was already running again, a blur and a silver flash that seemed to appear beside her. Or, at least, as beside her as he could get, he slammed his shoulder into the wall beside the door to stop himself.

“What did they do to you?” she whispered, frowning and reaching out a hand to brush the hair back from his face.

He flinched back, a motion which actually sent him back several feet in a blur of silver.

“Wanda, don’t.” his tone was dark and he shook his head, looking worriedly at the door, “You shouldn’t be here, I…” he let out a short gasp of pain -so did Wanda, she could feel the sharp tug of his power in her mind -and in a blink he was on the other side of the room.

Wanda stepped forward, reaching out a hand to him, “Pietro, you’re going to run yourself to death. You have to stop.”

“I can’t!” he shouted, pain adding a sharp edge to his words, because in another blink he was tripping over the edge of his bed, falling into it heavily as he struggled to stop himself.

He looked at her, “What do you think I’m doing?!” he growled the words, but she could see the flickers of panic in his eyes.

Before he could move again, she crossed over to the bed and knelt down in front of him, grabbing his hands in hers.

He tried to take his hands back, “No, Wanda, you don’t understand, I will tear you apart if I start-”

She held his hands more firmly, looking at him with a stubborn tightness in her jaw. “I’m not letting you go,” she said, much more gently than the heaviness of her grip would suggest, “so you are going to stay right here.”

Pietro clenched his hands into fists and Wanda could feel the mounting heat in his bones. The need to move and run was cutting like fire through him.

But she only moved one hand up to his shoulder, whispering, “I’m here, Pietro. I’m here, just be here with me. Focus…” she scooted an inch or two closer, “I’m here, I’m here…”

He was shaking with effort, but he was staying. For longer than he had been before.

Her other hand released his and moved up to his hair and she pulled him close, closing her eyes. She could feel red energy as it heated her hands and sent sparks into Pietro’s mind. She sent him images of their second home, from before the bombs. She sent him thoughts of when they would do nothing but sit and look at stars. When their mother would tell them about the constellations and planets until they fell asleep and their father would carry them inside. Still moments. Moments of complete relaxation.

In a minute or two, she could feel Pietro relax. The fire, the need to move, wasn’t as insistent anymore. He stopped shaking and, after a moment, let out a breath.

“How did you do that?” he asked.

She opened her eyes, hesitating, then angled her head, using a hand to move her hair out of the way and reveal the bruises from the injections on her neck.

“We did sign up for this.” she said, quietly, in place of an explanation.

Pietro’s jaw muscles tightened when he saw the bruises, “They hurt you?”

She raised an eyebrow at him sharply, looking at the bruises and scrapes that were covering his arms and, she was willing to bet, his legs from running into everything. “You’re one to talk.”

He wrapped one of his hands around the back of her neck and pulled her close so that their foreheads touched. “I’m fine, Wanda, it'll be alright.”

Just at that moment, there was the sound of running feet, followed by the appearance of over half a dozen Hydra agents at the door. They were pointing guns -only some of which were non-lethal tasers- at the twins. 

Wanda shifted away from her brother, raising her hands in a submissive gesture. She was still kneeling on the ground next to Pietro, who was mirroring her gesture from his seat on the bed. Two of the agents stomped forward and grabbed Wanda, pulling her to her feet quickly and half-pulling her towards the door. 

Immediately, Pietro jumped up, “Don’t hurt her!” he yelled.

She had only a second to register the sudden fire building in her brother’s bones. “Pietro, don’t-” she started to say.

But, of course, he had already flashed across the room, running straight into the guard who was holding onto Wanda’s left arm, knocking the man to the floor. 

One of the agents turned his gun on Pietro and Wanda snapped her now-freed left hand forward. A wall of red energy erupted between Pietro and the gun. 

Unfortunately, her brother was so surprised by her sudden display of power that he missed the fact that the guard holding Wanda’s other arm was also holding a taser.

Pietro fell to his knees with a scream, and so did Wanda. The red shield collapsed as a wave of second-hand pain from Pietro flooded her mind. For a minute all she could see and hear were flashes of white and a sort of ringing in her ears.

By the time the pain stopped, Wanda blinked her eyes a few times to clear them, she realized that someone else had joined the Hydra agents in the room.

A scientist, not one she was familiar with, but whoever this man was, he was wearing a lab coat. He was talking in a low, dark tone with the Hydra agents and in her scrambled mind she heard the words “assets”, “bumbling idiots”, and the phrase “too important” -the first and last one came up multiple times as the scientist talked.

Wanda let out a pained groan and the scientist suddenly cut off mid-sentence to look at her. He knelt down so he was closer to her level and, oddly, Wanda thought he looked _actually_ concerned.

“Are you alright?” the scientist asked.

She frowned, still trying to sort out what was happening. The Hydra agents had backed off and…

“Pietro?” she mumbled, trying to sit up.

“Your brother is fine, Wanda.” the scientist said, “I need you to tell me what happened just now.”

She blinked a few times, her mind was still hazy. She could still feel Pietro near, unconscious, probably behind her, but she was too weak to actually look. He wasn't hurt, so the scientist was telling enough of the truth to satisfy her. 

She turned her attention back to the scientist, murmuring, “I… I could feel his pain…” she reached a hand up to gesture weakly at the side of her head, “in my mind, I could… I could feel everything so I just… I had to help him.”

The scientist looked satisfied with this answer, and, besides, Wanda was struggling to stay awake. Between the exertions on her abilities and what she suspected was some kind of sedative that they had given to Pietro, she could hardly think.

A Hydra agent helped her to her feet and she could just hear the scientist muttering to himself. Or maybe he was talking on the phone, she was far too tired to tell the difference. She fell into unconsciousness before she was even put in her bed. 

Their fourth home was found soon after that.

The next day when Dr. List heard what Wanda had done, she expected him to be angry. Instead, he offered her a compromise; she and Pietro would train together each day, in addition to their separate training exercises. Apparently Pietro hadn’t sat so still for so long -with the exception of when they used sedatives -since his ability had kicked in. List believed that if Wanda could help him control his powers, it would lead to advancements in her own, since she could now read Pietro’s thoughts. He said he hoped that someday she would be able to read and alter any mind she chose. 

It didn’t matter to her, really. She was just overjoyed that she could see Pietro again. Because he made the Hydra facility -with all of its cold floors and locked doors and secrets and guns- more like a home than ever before.

Their fourth home didn't last very long.

They tried to fight for it, tried to save it as well as they could. 

She had even had her chance to leave a mark on Tony Stark's mind -Pietro had wanted to kill him then, but she had held him back. There would be another opportunity. She was sure.

In the end they chose to retreat. As Pietro carried her away from the facility, the air whipped at her face and forced her eyes closed. She didn't know how Pietro could see where he was going, she guessed that was just a part of his abilities. 

They found themselves in the surrounding forest. Standing in the trees for a few minutes, they watched the Avengers tear it all apart. Their home. Their promises of better lives. Those were all gone now.

It was Stark all over again.

Pietro tugged on Wanda’s hand, signalling that it was time to go. Time to find somewhere else.

She nodded, casting one last glance at the Hydra base.

This time, though, he would pay. This time they were ready to fight back. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! (This is my first time posting a fic, so if you liked it let me know! :D)


End file.
